"Oh, Cock!" he quoted with a hiccup. "Oh, Cock...!
"Cock, flutter not thy wings,
It is not nearly day.
Why with shrill utterings
Drivest thou sleep away?
Lo! in the Land of Nod,
To perfect peace I'd come.
Oh, Cock! there is a God
Will surely strike thee dumb,
Surely--strike thee--dumb--"
He stood up, stretched with a lurch, passed unsteadily to the doorway of the tent, raised the curtain, and looked out.
Far in the east a great drift of spent rose-leaf clouds lay softly between the lightening sky and the lightening earth.
And see! already their curled petals were catching the underglow of the hidden sun.
Babar stood still and held his breath hard, sobered in every fibre of his being, yet elate with something new that fled to heart and brain like molten fire.
A new day! A new day! A new day!
The words surged, not through him only, they echoed to the very sky. It is not given to all, this sudden exaltation, this sudden absorption of the self into something beyond self, and Babar, the fumes of last night's wine still hanging between him and clear thought, could only realise that something had come to him; that something was irrevocably settled for ever.
"My charger, slave!" he said hoarsely. "It--it is time I went my rounds."
It stood ready at the door; he mounted, and, after his wont, rode off alone.